It’s International Women’s Day, a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.
It’s also an opportunity to reflect on progress and consider the actions we can each take to accelerate gender equality.
This year’s theme is #BreakTheBias and the aim is to imagine a gender equal world, one that is free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.
We spoke to colleagues around the company to talk about what we’re doing as a company to achieve this aim – in particular, how our bias awareness training helps people to look at their own behaviours and the importance of leaders leading by example.
Martin Holloway, Director of Operations (Southern), is aware we’re not quite the diverse workforce we should be but that our bias awareness training is part of the journey to achieving this. He said: “There are all sorts of historic reasons why women, people of colour, LGBTQ+, disabled and other groups are underrepresented but that’s no excuse for us going forward – we’ve got work to do.”
Annabel West, Head of Engineering Policy, wants everyone to encourage more girls and young women to consider a career in engineering, and talks of the benefits a career in engineering can bring. She said: “We’d build each other up, we’ll encourage a long and big generation of engineers who can help us solve the world’s problems.”
Our bias awareness training is just a small part of what we’re doing to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace for our female colleagues. This includes more inclusive recruitment practices, with all hiring managers receiving training by the end of 2021/22, and extra resources to support hiring managers in creating diverse shortlisting, diverse interview panels and advertising roles to attract the biggest range of candidates possible.
We’re also encouraging our leaders to get more involved in issues around diversity and inclusion, with the formation of our D&I Steering group consisting of Martin Holloway, HR and Services Director Kate Naylor, Director of IT and Innovation Andrew Quail, and Director of Stakeholder Relations and Communications Rob Gray.
Our Different Perspectives mutual mentoring programme launched in October 2021 and is designed to help promote diversity of thought and encourage colleagues to see things from a different point of view. Every member of our Executive team are participating, with the potential to roll out further in 2022.
You can find out more about our Diversity and Inclusion Ambition here.
